He said, She said -Tahir Ibrahim Tahir

Tahir Ibrahim Tahir (Talban Bauchi)

The kind of coverage Channels TV gave to the Finance Minister's fiasco with the Federal House of Representatives' Finance Committee, was sure to pitch and emboss public opinion against the courageous Finance Committee Chairman, Hon. Dr. Abdulmumin Jibrin. The portrayal was of an unruly young man who was struggling to stamp his committee's authority in asserting that their session with the minister had come to an end, in an effort to grant respite to the ill taken Hon Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala who had earlier given the house her reasons for not being able to honor the committee's invitations over time; incredibly, for eleven months. She lamented that her very tedious schedule and ill health had prevailed on her not to honor the oversight committee's invitations which had definitely prevented the Finance Committee from carrying out it's functions.

The committee must have been irked by among many things; the startling revelation by the CBN boss over missing billions, ten billion in dollars to be precise. The legislators were perturbed to put it lightly, over the way the economy was being run, with single digit GDP growth, extra government spending, rising profile of government's recurrent expenditures and poor growth of employment. They were worried over illegal excess crude accounts, depletion of foreign reserves, low and stagnant debt to GDP percentage, compared to other developing countries, and other issues such as the rising profile of internal debt stock as against a continuous reduction of foreign debts which diminishes the growth of local industry and enterprise. The committee had raised 50 questions to get the minister's explanations on these economic matters over a flailing economy.



The prototypical bias of our media brought to bear it's ever one sided perception over the matter, driving home obvious interests, totally unsurprising to us. Attention was professionally taken away from the decomposing economy and the know-all disposition of it's managers which we suffer in the face of their all ears and eyes closed attitude. The Finance Minister had laurels from the world bank and mustn't be questioned or ruled over, that was what we were mustered to believe. She complained of ill health as her excuses for not honoring the committee's invitations; a committee constitutionally so charged to oversee the workings of her ministry. She was answerable to them, akin to a courtroom scenario, where the Judge's gavel weighed in, with the authority to stamp out contempt.

If she had forgotten, the committee reminded her of the contempt with which she had evaded their summons and somehow escaped the issuance of a bench warrant for her, from them. After the gavel, madame should have taken a bow and left unceremoniously. The legislator's conduct was inflammed and shoved down our throats as disrespectful, hiding the minister's excuses of ill health, not to mention, the brow raising, wrist clenching, nerve wrecking, patience exhausting, true picture of the nations fortunes.

With due respect to the distinguished Oby Ezekwesili who had earlier rubbished Jibrin as no more than a research assistant to Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala; (Anti Oby as we fondly refer to her in social media circles), she swiftly retracted her comments, apologised, and further went ahead to describe Jibrin as a distinguished Intellectual! Her front or backflip took me to Jibrin's wikipedia page which gave me a deeper perspective as to why she so referred to him as intellectually a bravado. If the idolisation of Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala is in academic excellence, Dr Jibrin is no push over and I see him as a younger but faster achiever. A PhD holder himself, he is also an alumnus of London Business School, Harvard Business School, International Business House London, European Institute of Business Administration (NSEAD) france, to mention a few. In his stint at the house of representatives, he was the chairman of an adhoc committee on finance, petroleum upstream and downstream, as well as gas, which discovered the unremitted 450 billion naira by the NNPC; an endeavor that saw to the installmental payments of the said amount. He has also headed committees that investigated unremitted revenues by government agencies. So hyping the minister over the finance chairman over educational content is poorly choreographed. She is older yes, but he is no easy chew either.

So the onslaught on the character of Jibrin over inappropriate conduct can only be explained as a furious exercise by government over his committee's activities and successes in their probes so far. The face off between the minister and her supervisory finance committee had a context to it, rubbing off the discordant manner in which the minister has related with the committee. We have been hoodwinked into thinking an elected official disrespected a handpicked one, whereas the former is constitutionally empowered over the other, when the chips are down. All the noise has succeeded in distracting us from the prize of clearer probity, accountability and good governance. Channels did not show the minutes of the session where the minister complained of ill health, but chose the clips that showed the ruling for an adjournment and the minister's protests that followed.

We stand to see whether the questions given to her will be answered satisfactorily, or be stacked on top the numerous questions the nigerian public is asking. Will the reserves rise? Will the government begin to service domestic debts? Will the government steer us away from the subservience of foreign debts? Will 10 billion dollars resurface? Will the new DISCOs dance enough to propel for better electricity distribution? As Oby Ezekwesil said to me on twitter, it is well Tahir, we shall get there! I said amen Anti.

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